1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a telephone voice messaging system which allows a user to download a pre-recorded outgoing greeting message. More particularly, it relates to a telephone voice messaging system which allows a user to access, select, and download a pre-recorded outgoing greeting message from an external source.
2. Background of Related Art
Telephone voice messaging systems, e.g., telephone answering devices (i.e., answering machines) are useful devices for both the home and office environments. A conventional telephone answering device generally operates on a single telephone line and answers an incoming call of a calling party to an unused (i.e., on-hook) telephone after a desired number of rings. The telephone answering device causes the telephone line to enter an off-hook condition, then plays an outgoing greeting message to the calling party. After the outgoing greeting message has played in its entirety, the calling party can leave a voice message on the telephone answering device. At a later time, the voice message is replayed by the user, depending on the features of the telephone answering device, either local to the telephone answering device or via remote connection from another telephone.
FIG. 7 illustrates a conventional telephone answering device capable of answering an incoming telephone call on a telephone line and including the capability to locally record an outgoing greeting message.
In FIG. 7, a telephone answering device 11 is connected to a telephone company central office 13 via a telephone line 15. A telephone line interface (TLI) 17 in the telephone answering device 11 provides the conventional isolation, DC and AC impedance as required by telephone company standards. The telephone line interface 17 also provides a ring detect signal to a controller 19. The ring detect signal indicates to the controller 19 the ringing of an incoming call on the telephone line 15. The controller 19 can be any suitable processor, e.g., a microprocessor, a microcontroller, or a digital signal processor (DSP). Furthermore, the controller 19 includes a dual tone multi frequency (DTMF) decoder 21 and a DTMF generator 23 to detect and generate control signals from a keypad 25 relating to the outgoing telephone call.
The user can locally record an outgoing greeting message into the conventional telephone answering device 11 through a microphone 37 connected to the voice recorder/playback audio module 27. The locally recorded outgoing greeting message is stored in voice message memory 29 or other non-volatile location, and is played to the calling party when the telephone line is initially answered.
After a desired number of ring signals, the telephone answering device 11 causes the telephone line interface 17 to place the telephone line 15 in an off-hook state, and instructs a voice recorder/playback audio module 27 to play a pre-recorded outgoing greeting message on the telephone line 15 to the calling party. Upon completion of the outgoing greeting message being played to the calling party, the calling party can leave a voice message in the voice message memory 29 under the control of the controller 19.
A keypad 25 allows the user to select various modes of operation, including the playback of voice messages through a speaker 39 connected to the voice recorder/playback audio module 27, while the display 33 is capable of displaying a status of the various modes.
The conventional telephone answering device 11 is typically limited to the use of outgoing greeting messages which are either pre-stored at the factory or locally recorded by the user of the telephone answering device 11. For example, the outgoing greeting message can be recorded local to the telephone answering device 11 by the user, when the telephone answering device 11 is not in telephonic use, by speaking the outgoing greeting message into the microphone 37.
However, some users of telephone answering devices may not prefer to record their own outgoing greeting message. For instance, a foreign speaking user may have difficulty in some cases clearly articulating certain words in a language foreign to them when locally recording an outgoing greeting message, or may have too strong an accent to allow easy understanding by some callers. Moreover, a person may want to convey the image to all callers that others are in the household, e.g., for security reasons. Thus, some telephone answering devices 11 provide pre-recorded outgoing greeting messages. Unfortunately, while pre-recorded outgoing greeting messages may provide a clearly articulated message, the user typically does not have much choice in choosing the specific content of the outgoing greeting message. This leads to little flexibility and customizability to the user.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an alternative to conventional choices for providing outgoing greeting messages from a voice messaging system such as a telephone answering device.